Home is Where You Are
by RayWritesThings
Summary: Oliver comes to recognize some hard truths about where things stand with him and his sister. Season 4 AU, post-"Beacon of Hope" and no "Eleven-Fifty-Nine", Queen Siblings Fic, No Olicity


**Hello, readers. I've decided to start cross-posting some of my fics from AO3 and tumblr over to FFN, so if you recognize this story most likely you've read it on either of my accounts there (Ray_Writes and raywritesthings, respectively). If you haven't read it before, I hope you enjoy!**

**-RayWritesThings**

**Home is Where You Are**

It took Oliver some time to reach full consciousness. He was aware he was lying on a table and that he'd been given something that left his senses somewhat dulled. For pain?

He attempted to sit up but couldn't quite manage it and groaned instead.

"Ollie!"

Thea was there in moments, still in her Speedy suit sans the mask. It was coming back to him now, the fight and how his grapple arrow had been cut. His fall. He was probably lucky not to have broken his neck. No wonder she was worried.

"Hey, Speedy," he said, and he managed to squeeze her fingers back when she took one of his hands.

"Oh, my God, I thought you were going to die." Worry was the one emotion he could pick up from her as she hovered over him, and it took his brain another couple seconds to process Laurel's silent presence at her side. She spared him a relieved glance but was focusing most of her attention on rubbing soothing circles on Thea's back. He couldn't see John, but was pretty sure he was somewhere off to the left. "Please don't ever scare me like that again."

"Wasn't trying to," he said, his voice still a bit gruff from waking up.

Thea's gaze fell to the floor. "I know. I just meant—" She stopped herself from finishing and seemed to shrink back further into Laurel's side.

And it struck Oliver suddenly in a way it hadn't before. Thea hadn't been sitting by his bedside. She'd been hanging back even while he was unconscious. Felicity had used to wheel her chair over, but in her absence, he suddenly felt the absence of his sister, which had seemingly been going on unnoticed till now.

"I think we're all a little tired," Laurel decided. "The main thing is that Oliver's gonna be okay."

"Right," he heard John agree, to his left as he'd thought. He shifted forward and into Oliver's view. "Probably should let you keep resting, now that we know you've pulled through."

Thea nodded and turned away from him, muttering a, "Goodnight, Ollie." She accepted the arm Laurel placed over her shoulder with not a single hint of protest and followed John out of the room to change and leave the base.

Only when he was left alone did Oliver realize he'd forgotten to reply. But a more important question was occupying his thoughts.

When had Laurel become his sister's protector?

He wasn't jealous. Oliver had always known Laurel and Thea had a special relationship, but it had always felt in addition to the bond he and Thea had. In recent months there had been a shift, though. Laurel was the one Thea turned to, the one she relied on, far more than him.

If he was being honest with himself, that shift had occurred in the time he'd been away with Felicity. He still spoke with Thea, he still loved her...but there'd been a distance. She'd rarely come to see them in the loft — back when he'd still been welcome there — and, thinking of a bloodstain hidden even now under a floor rug, he couldn't exactly blame her. And he hadn't put much thought into how Thea would have fit into the life he'd envisioned with Felicity, whether back when he'd thought they were staying in Ivy Town or even after they came back and he'd proposed. Even when Palmer Tech had been taken hostage, Laurel had been the one to realize that Thea was also in danger, while he had been more worried about his ex-fiancé.

Had he really grown to neglect his sister so much?

Oliver had little to do but lie on his back for the next few hours and contemplate this troubling realization. His mind wouldn't let him get back to sleep, instead trying to go back through the months and figure out where he'd gone so wrong. There was a time not so long ago that he'd pledged his very life and soul, everything he had, for Thea. It had been one of the only certainties in his life.

The other, he had told Felicity once, was that he loved her. And now that that love had been rejected, he could see more clearly that he'd given up on his dedication to the one woman who was _always _going to be in his life.

Shame was not an unusual feeling for him, but he felt overtaken by it all the same. Thea was his sister, his responsibility, and he'd shoved her off onto a friend so he could chase a dream life in the suburbs. He'd never even thought to compensate Laurel for that, much less thanked her. Not that she would have been likely to accept it; she'd say it was no trouble. An extra sister wasn't a burden to her the way he had likely made Thea feel she was a burden to him.

Oliver wondered what his mother would say if she knew how he'd acted. If she'd blame him for all the trouble with Malcolm last year or hate him for leaving Thea behind last summer and refusing to deal with the lingering effects of the Lazarus Pit. His eyes started to feel suspiciously wet.

It wasn't possible for him to know how much time had passed down in the bunker, but Oliver couldn't take it anymore. He sat up and gained his feet. After pausing to allow some spots in his vision to fade, he unplugged the IV of pain medication and threw on the first shirt he could find in his still half-packed boxes sitting to one side of the base. Then Oliver took the elevator up and let himself out of the building on street level.

The walk he took wasn't long, and he could have found his way in his sleep if he wanted. It wasn't quite dawn by the time he reached Laurel's apartment, but that didn't really register to him. Not until it took him three tries at knocking before the door was answered by a Laurel still in her pajamas and blinking sleep from her eyes.

"Ollie?"

"Hey," he said. "Sorry."

"You shouldn't be up." Laurel reached for his arm and guided him over to her couch. "How did you get here?"

"Walked. Is Thea, um…?" He was asking someone else if he could see his own sister because she lived in their home and not his. He didn't have a home, but that didn't seem to matter to his brain or to his throat which closed up and wouldn't allow him to finish.

"I can get her." She watched him a moment longer, concern evident, and Oliver dropped his gaze to the floor. He knew he had to seem odd right now, maybe even irrational. He couldn't explain why he suddenly had this need, how seeing Thea pull away from him physically tonight had made him realize just how much they'd drifted apart.

Two sets of footsteps padded back down the hall towards him, and Thea's pajama bottoms came into view.

"Ollie, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said automatically.

There was a pause in which he could hear Thea's frown, and then she sat down next to him. He turned at last to actually look her in the eye.

"What's actually wrong?"

He didn't know how to say it, was the problem. He didn't have the words for just how wrong his life felt now that he wasn't so caught up in his own relationship.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" She prompted.

"Everything?" His voice was strained again, this time in an attempt not to let the tears that had threatened before while he was alone to fall. It was the lingering painkillers affecting his usual control, some dim part of him knew that, but he also couldn't seem to wrest that control back with his usual strength.

"I missed- miss you. I miss us."

She reached out and placed her hand on his leg. "I'm right here."

"But I haven't been. All the times you needed me most, I was never there. And not just because I couldn't be. I left you, Thea. Again and again."

"That's okay," she said in a way that he could clearly see now was a brushoff. She didn't really mean it, but she was more worried about him. "What's- what's brought this on, huh? You having your Wonderful Life moment?"

"No, it's actually pretty horrible," he said on a breathy laugh. "But I realized, tonight, that when I thought it was wonderful, there was still something wrong. I realized that I'd let a relationship become more important than my family, and that I'd let it come between us."

She didn't have an excuse this time, some words that would let him off the hook. Thea was staring at him like she couldn't quite believe he was real.

Oliver wondered if this was a dream she'd had before, where her absentee brother finally apologized for everything that he'd failed to do.

"I just wanted you to be happy," she eventually said, around what sounded like a lump in her throat.

"I know. But I can't be without you."

He wasn't sure which of them moved first, but he had his little sister in his arms, and he held on as tight as he could for as long as his recovering body would allow. After a time, Oliver sat back like she did and wiped at the wetness that had leaked from his closed eyes.

"I'm not sorry that you found somebody to be there for you in the meantime—" they both glanced towards Laurel, who was leaning against the archway to her kitchen while she silently observed "—but I am sorry I let it come to that. And I- I wish I knew how to fix it, Speedy, but I don't."

The fact was that he was unemployed and homeless. Thea would be far better off staying with Laurel than following him and his singular failure to maintain a steady personal life and income. How was he supposed to look after her when he couldn't even do the same for himself?

"So, uh, I guess," he mumbled, slowly starting to push back up from the couch. He was starting to feel the soreness in his body now that the medication was leaving him, as well as being increasingly aware of how he'd just barged right in.

But Laurel stepped forward. "Oliver, you're not going anywhere."

He blinked. "I'm not?"

"No. You and Thea shouldn't have to live separately if that's not what you want, and you shouldn't have to be living in the base, period. You can stay in Thea's room, and Thea and I can share mine."

"No, I couldn't." He shook his head even as he noticed Thea's face fall. "I don't even have anything to give you for rent, Laurel."

"Did I ask for anything?" She replied. "Come on, you need to sleep, and you're not walking all the way back to the bunker. We'll talk about it in the morning."

They each took him by an arm, gently due to his injuries, and led him back into the second bedroom. The covers were rumpled from Thea's stay in them, and he could smell the spray she used for her hair on the pillow. It was comforting, and his body relaxed without his say-so.

Thea tucked him in, which felt as though it should have been the other way around, but he couldn't complain.

"Goodnight, Ollie."

"Goodnight." He sat up a little as she moved to turn off the light. "Thea?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Her smile was the sweetest thing he would ever lay eyes on. "I love you, too."

She turned off the light and stepped out into the hall, and Laurel shut the door quietly. He heard their footsteps fade away as they left for Laurel's room and as he slowly fell asleep.

His mind was quiet now; the guilt and the worries not gone, but manageable in the face of feeling like he'd finally come home after a very long while. Oliver slept through the rest of the night.


End file.
